5.  The applicant is a Greek national of Roma origin, who was born in 1985 and lives in Athens. He was sixteen years old at the time of the events.
6.  On 5 August 2001, P.P., a kiosk owner in Argostoli, on the island of Cephalonia, reported to the local police that approximately 9,500,000 Greek drachmas (GRD, 28,000 euros (EUR)) had been stolen from him. During the summary investigation that was immediately carried out by the local police, four Roma youths were taken to Argostoli police station. On the same day the four youths were transferred to the Cephalonia prosecutor's office and then, on 6 August 2001, taken to court for an immediate summary trial, where they were acquitted of all charges.
7.  The applicant, who was a friend of the four youths, turned up at the police station spontaneously on 5 August 2001 out of fellow feeling for his friends. He was also shown to the kiosk owner but was not recognised by him.
8.  According to the applicant, while he was at the police station he was questioned as to whether or not he had been involved in the theft. The applicant submitted that he had been punched and slapped hard in the face for over a quarter of an hour by a police officer, N.K., and in the presence of the commander of the police station, who questioned him to make him confess that he had participated in the theft. He was subsequently allowed to leave the police station. However, the applicant maintained that the police officer kept his mobile phone to find out whether it was stolen.
9.  A few hours after his release on 5 August 2001 the applicant was admitted to the local hospital, the General Prefectural Medical Hospital of Cephalonia, and had a medical examination there. He stayed there for four hours. The hospital certificate indicated the following:
“[The applicant] came to our hospital's emergency department on 5 August 2001 and was found to be suffering from: a head injury reportedly inflicted by beating, dizziness, severe headache, swelling and sensitivity of the nose and difficulty in maintaining eye focus. No trace of fracture of the skull was detected. He remained at the hospital for a short period, of four hours. He was treated with Lonarid ...”
10.  On 7 August 2001, the applicant went to the Cephalonia prosecutor's office. He was intending to lodge a complaint against the policemen involved in the alleged beating but the prosecutor was not in his office. The applicant alleged that the prosecutor's secretary was so struck by the bruises on his face that she called the police station and asked the policemen to leave him alone in future. The applicant did not submit a complaint on that occasion.
11.  On 5 September 2001, the applicant was arrested by police officer N.K. because he could not provide a receipt to show that he had bought the mobile phone and the police officer thought he had stolen it. He was taken to the police station, questioned and released again.
12.  On 27, 28 and 29 September 2001, two local newspapers published a statement made on 25 September 2001 by the World Organisation Against Torture (OMTC) which denounced the alleged ill-treatment of the applicant. The statement, whose title read 'Appeal of the OMTC in relation to the ill-treatment of two Roma youth in Argostoli – two Roma in the Cephalonia slaughterhouse', indicated that the [applicant], who had been questioned in connection with a theft, was punched and slapped hard in the face by a policeman whose first name was Nikos, in the presence of the commander of the police station.
13.  On 8 October 2001, the applicant lodged a complaint with the Cephalonia prosecutor's office that he had been ill-treated at the police station on 5 August 2001 and sought to join the proceedings as a civil party claiming damages, jointly with his father. The complaint was against the police station commander and anyone else involved. In his complaint the applicant described his interrogation, which had lasted approximately one hour. He specified that when he was unable to answer the questions asked by the policemen one of them started punching him violently and persistently in the head, trying to make him confess. The commander continued to question him while he was being beaten. He was released when the kiosk owner confirmed that he did not recognise him. The applicant provided as a supporting document the medical certificate produced by the hospital.
14.[1]  On 21 November 2001 the Director of the Cephalonia Police Directorate ordered a sworn administrative investigation (“Enorki Dioikitiki Exetasi EDE”), which was conducted by the Deputy Director of the Cephalonia Police Directorate, being the hierarchical superior authority to the Argostoli police and situated in the same building.
15.  During the EDE, on 2 May 2002, the kiosk owner was summoned to testify before the Deputy Director. He submitted inter alia:
“... as I have been informed, the previous evening the victim [the applicant] had fallen down and injured himself or had been involved in a brawl with persons of the same race with him ...”.
16.  On 15 May 2002 the Deputy Director, who had now been promoted to Director of the Cephalonia Police Directorate, concluded the EDE, arguing that the applicant's allegations were “manifestly ill-founded” and recommended that no disciplinary action be taken.
17.  According to the findings of the EDE:
“... all the allegations in the denunciation dated 25 September 2001 by the World Organisation Against Torture, the attached press releases, the letters from British citizens, the Amnesty International letter and letters from other agencies are false and do not contain a grain of truth, which is proved by the testimonies of the police officers, citizens and the Roma people themselves who were allegedly tortured and ill-treated by police officers. They are also refuted by the documents attached hereto: the hospital's medical certificate, and so on.
...
All the accusations against Commander G.H. are false, as during the conduct of a summary investigation into the theft of a large sum of money (GRD 9,500,000) from P.P. he acted in line with his official duties and according to the rules of the Code of Criminal Procedure, in an effort to investigate whether the charge was true or false, protecting the suspects and respecting all personal data and behaving impeccably, kindly and with respect for the person of all suspects.
The accusations against Sergeant N.K. are also false, as he acted in line with his official duties, kindly and with respect for the suspects' person, during the investigation of the case of theft, always according to the explicit orders and instructions of his commander, Commander G.H.”
18.  As regards the applicant's complaint of 8 October 2001, the request from the Cephalonia Indictment Division dated 19 December 2003 was dismissive of the charges against the commander of the police station and another police officer. The Indictment Division recommended, however, that police officer N.K. be charged with ill-treating the applicant and tried.
19.  On 12 April 2006, the Three-Member Criminal Court of Cephalonia convicted police officer N.K. and sentenced him to three years' imprisonment, commutable to a fine and suspended pending appeal. The court also awarded the applicant pecuniary compensation of fifty euros. The court concluded, after examining twelve witnesses, that police officer N.K. had repeatedly punched the applicant in the head and face and caused him serious bodily harm in order to make him confess to the theft. In particular, the court held as follows:
“It transpires from the proceedings, the documents which were read, the witness statements, the examination of the civil party, the accused's pleading and the deliberation, that at midnight on 4 August 2001, P.P., the owner of a kiosk, reported to the Argostoli police the theft of a large amount of money (GRD 9,500,000). The Argostoli police security department carried out a preliminary investigation. Police officers tried to find [the applicant] at the Roma encampment in Argostoli, where he lived with his sister, but he was not there. When he came back and his sister informed him that the police were looking for him, he went of his own free will to the Argostoli police security department, where he was questioned in relation to the above-mentioned theft. The accused, who was serving as a police officer at Argostoli police station, of Argostoli, participated in the questioning. On 5 August 2001, in order to make the applicant confess that he had committed the theft, he punched him in the head and face and caused him bodily harm, in particular a severe headache, swelling and sensitivity of the nose and difficulty in maintaining eye focus. Consequently, he should be found guilty”.
21.  At the hearing of 23 February 2007, neither the applicant nor the representative of Greek Helsinki Monitor, who was one of the first-instance trial prosecution witnesses, were summoned to the proceedings. The hearing was then adjourned, first to 21 September 2007 and then to 1 February 2008. It continued on 18 February 2008 at the request of the defendant's lawyer and was then postponed to 15 April 2008 because a storm made it impossible for many out-of-town witnesses to attend.
22.  On 15 April 2008 the Court of Appeal held a hearing in the presence of the applicant and his lawyer and acquitted the police officer for lack of evidence. In particular, the Court of Appeal stated the following:
“...The prosecution and defence witnesses' testimonies, the perusal of the record of the first-instance trial and the documents referred to in that record, the defendant's statement of defence and the overall evidence procedure gave rise to doubts as to whether the accused police officer had committed the offence referred to in Article 137A § 3-1 of the Criminal Code against Theodoros Stefanou. The Court's doubts are reinforced by the following evidence: 1) the content of medical certificate No. 4433 of the Prefectural Hospital of Cephalonia ...
Besides, as can be seen from the sworn examination report of witness P.P. (the person who reported the theft ...) which was read out in the courtroom, when the victim arrived at the Argostoli Police Security Department in the early hours of 5 August 2001 he had one arm bandaged, because as witness P.P. testified, the victim had been involved in a fight with other Roma the previous night (4 August 2001) ... On the basis of all the foregoing, it is highly probable that the bodily injuries attested to by the Cephalonia hospital certificate were caused to the victim not by the defendant, police officer N.K., but during a fight that had taken place on the night of 4 August 2001, in which the victim had participated actively, as he came to the Argostoli Police Security Department of Argostoli with a broken right arm...Furthermore, if the victim's bodily injuries had been caused by the accused police officer inside the Police Security Department and had been as violent as the victim claimed, the wounds to his face would have been much more serious and would certainly have been verifiable by a doctor.
If the accused police officer had caused the bodily injuries to the victim in order to force him to confess to the theft ... the defendant or his other colleagues would have shown the same violent behaviour also to ..., acquaintances and friends of the victim, who were the only ones to be committed for trial before the Three–Member Criminal Court of Cephalonia for flagrant offences (while the victim was not so committed). ... The defendant had no reason to use violence against the victim, all the more since the victim was not identified by P.P. as one of the four suspects of the theft against him ....”
23.  On 4 September 2003, the applicant lodged a complaint with the Cephalonia prosecutor's office for breach of duty, false certification, perjury, incitement to perjury, forgery, incitement to commit forgery and blackmail against eleven police officers who had been involved in the events of 5 August 2001, in the EDE and in the procedure resulting in the first applicant's complaint, including the commander of the police station and police officer N.K.
24.  In his observations and supplementary observations of 25 May 2004, concerning more specifically the commander of the police station, the applicant submitted that the commander had used racial profiling when he admitted having used the applicant as a “visual suspect” only for the reason that he was “of the same age and appearance as the other Roma youth”. He also maintained that the police had examined his mobile phone twice, suspecting that he might have stolen it, on the sole basis that it seemed to be of a value disproportionate to his means because he was a Rom. He further contended that in his observations in defence, the commander again racially profiled the Roma as criminals, including the use of terms such as “racial environment” and the phrase “Roma are people without professions who are seeking cultural and social goods and who have chosen as their permanent means of attaining them the illegal acquisition of money”. He underlined that the racial bias of the commander explained why such methods were used during the interrogation of the applicant, with a view to extracting a confession to the alleged theft of a large sum of money which was never found in the possession of the applicant. The applicant alleged a breach of the Law Against Racism, no. 927/79.
25.  On 11 August 2004, the Cephalonia prosecutor's office decided not to press any charges against the police officers concerned, because the file did not indicate that they had committed any breach of duty.
26.  On 18 July 2005 the applicant lodged a complaint with the Athens prosecutor's office against the same eleven police officers (as in the complaint of 4 September 2003), and sought to join the proceedings as a civil party claiming damages, seeking compensation of thirty euros. The applicant complained again of breach of duty, false certification, perjury, incitement to perjury, forgery, incitement to commit forgery and blackmail on the part of these officers and added a complaint of violation of Laws Against Racism nos. 927/1979 and 3304/2005. In this respect he claimed that there was a causal link between his ethnic origin and his ill-treatment.
28.  On 29 November 2005, the Cephalonia prosecutor's office indicted three police officers before the Criminal Court of Cephalonia for forgery and multiple perjury: they were accused of having on 5 September 2001 forged the applicant's signature, without his knowledge, on the record of interview. In its decision of the same date, the prosecutor stated that the file did not indicate that the commander of the police station had made any offensive statements about the Roma ethnic origin of the applicant.
29.  The three police officers appealed against their committal for trial. On 27 June 2006 the applicant was served with a copy of a decision of the Indictment Division of Cephalonia of 13 June 2006, in which all charges against the three police officers were dropped.